The Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (PTDC) has decided to close down six of its motels as they were incurring losses. This is a tale similar to the condition of several state-owned enterprises which are caught in cyclical losses due to lack of feedback and performance review along with a job guarantee. At this point, the aim of the government should be to revive whatever structures and institutions which have been functional despite their losses. An alternative to completely shutting them down would be to privatise them. With a special focus on tourism, it is also necessary that the government seeks an opportunity to privatise especially in cases which can actually improve the situation if privatisation is considered over shutting these places down altogether.

The six premises are PTDC motel at Taxila in Punjab, PTDC motel at Chattar Plain in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, PTDC motel at Astak in Gilgit-Baltistan, PTDC motel at Khuzdar in Balochistan, Chakdara restaurant in KP and Daman-i-Koh restaurant in Islamabad. These spots hold great importance with regards to the tourism industry. If these places shut down, the government will also incur additional costs in taking down the structures which can be reutilised by the private sector to sustain these places and revive the tourism industry at the same time.

There will be an influx of tourists to Pakistan after the new visa regime by the government. In that case, it is necessary that the government relies on existing structures rather than focusing on building new ones. This is precisely what has been pointed out by the tour agents as well who are discouraged by the new decision. Frequent travelers have also pointed out that these routes are most traveled upon and the motels offer the perfect resting spots after covering a certain distance and they hope that the decision of PTDC is temporary.